"Across the broader concession we identified shallow satellite surface targets, potentially adding growth and operational flexibility to our mine plan, and completed the first airborne geophysical survey in Egypt—a milestone for Centamin and Egypt's hard rock sector," Centamin's CEO Martin Horgan said.
UK investment bank Peel Hunt said the update "demonstrates significant progress" and shows Sukari to be well supported in the near and longer term.
Centamin highlighted drilling results from the Sukari Bonanza zones which could improve underground operational flexibility through the development of a new high-grade mining area in the near-term, including:
- 10 metres at 64g/t Au
- 4.5 metres at 267g/t Au
- 17 metres at 12.5g/t Au
Underground conversion drilling included:
- 54 metres at 15.1g/t Au
- 23 metres at 7.2g/t Au
- 17 metres at 9.6g/t Au
- 8.5 metres at 7.6g/t au
The company also reported Sukari surface exploration, which, it says, could have the potential to supplement mill feed in the short to medium term. The results included:
- 22 metres at 2.9g/t AU
- 10 metres at 2.9g/t Au
Centamin is planning to give a resources and reserves update for Sukari in the fourth quarter of this year.
"We also made excellent progress across our organic pipeline of projects that offer growth and diversification. The pre-feasibility study at Doropo progressed well with drilling focused on both converting existing Inferred Resources to Indicated Resources and testing newly identified growth targets," Horgan said.
The Doropo project, which is in Cote d'Ivoire, is scheduled to have its PFS released in Q4.
Centamin's share price was C$1.21 (US$0.93) on July 7. The company has a market capitalization of C$1.4 billion.
